Dewi Sukarno

Ratna Sari Dewi Sukarno (ラトナ サリ デヴィ スカルノ), widely known in Japan as Dewi Fujin (デヴィ夫人) is a Japanese-born Indonesian businesswoman, socialite, television personality and philanthropist.

She was one of the wives of the first President of Indonesia, Sukarno.

Naoko Nemoto was born on February 6, 1940, in Tokyo, to Heishichiro Nemoto and Masako Nemoto.

Nemoto had a younger brother, Yasoo Nemoto, and her mother was constantly sick.

Her father was a carpenter, who passed away when she was 15.

To make ends meet, Nemoto worked at a famous club named "Copacabana".

In 1959, Nemoto, who was 19, met Sukarno, who was 38 years her senior, at the Ginza hostess bar in Tokyo, near the Imperial Hotel.

Nemoto was an arts student and entertainer, while the latter was on a state visit to Japan.

Naoko married Sukarno in Indonesia in 1962 and converted to Islam.

Sukarno gave her the Indonesian name "Ratna Sari Dewi Sukarno"; derived from Javanese-Sanskrit which means "the jewel essence of a goddess".

They had one daughter, Kartika (born March 11, 1967, and is now going by the name "Carina"), who was Sukarno's eighth child.

Sukarno was eventually overthrown by General Suharto in 1967 and died three years later.

The widowed Dewi Sukarno moved to Europe after Sukarno's ousting and has since lived in different countries, including three years in Switzerland, ten years in France, and another decade in the United States.

In January 1992, Dewi Sukarno became involved in a much-publicised altercation at a party in Aspen, Colorado, United States with fellow international socialite and heiress, Minnie Osmeña.

A granddaughter of former Philippine President Sergio Osmeña, she reportedly commented on Sukarno's past, and the spat culminated in Sukarno hitting Osmeña's face with a champagne flute.

Osmeña needed 37 stitches to seal the gash, while Sukarno was later detained for 34 days in Aspen for disorderly conduct.

Sukarno and Osmeña had already been hostile to each other after an exchange at an earlier party months before, where Sukarno was heard to laugh at Osmeña's political plans (among which was to run for Vice President of the Philippines).

The following year, Sukarno posed for Madame d'Syuga: Dewi with Love, a book of photography by Hideki Fujii that was published in her native Japan in 1993.

Many of the images feature her semi-nude, with some showing what appeared to be tattoo-like body art.

The photo-book, while not distributed in Indonesia, was immediately banned by the New Order government, and many Indonesians felt offended by what they perceived to be a disgrace of late President Sukarno's name and legacy.

In 1997, the New York Daily News published anonymous rumors that Sukarno had been involved in a "hair-pulling tiff" at a Halloween party with Kaethe Schuchter, a companion of fraudulent money manager Martin Frankel.

Sukarno denied the allegations and after failing to make Schuchter publicly retract the claim, launched a defamation lawsuit against her.

Not long after, federal conspiracy and fraud charges were brought up against Frankel and Schuchter, who fled the United States in May 1999.

She makes a living doing part-time jobs, appearing on Japanese television and has served as a judge for a beauty contest, as in the Miss International 2005 pageant held in Tokyo.

She is well known for her sculpted beauty and often claims to have not had the facelifts and plastic surgery that her doctor has rumored performing.

In Japanese media, Sukarno has become known for her outspoken personality.

In an interview with Desi Anwar of CNN Indonesia, she expressed reservations about being known solely as the late President Sukarno's widow 40 years after his death.

By 2008, she had returned to Japan and lived in Shibuya, Tokyo, where she lived in her memorabilia-filled residence.

This left Sukarno's lawsuit in limbo and it wasn't until 2009 that Schuchter was apprehended by Italian authorities.

In the aftermath of the controversial launch of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 satellite in April 2009, Sukarno was invited to comment by Japanese media, since her late husband had managed to maintain favorable relations with North Korea during his reign.

In an interview, she commented that "Japan is making too much noise, it's only an artificial satellite", which outraged Japanese right-wing groups.

On the evening of April 19, one of their sound trucks appeared at Sukarno's residence in affluent Minato, Tokyo and staged a loud protest.

In response, she threw two plant pots from her second-floor balcony and allegedly hit the van's mirrors.

Immediately afterward, Sukarno came out to confront the right-wingers, which resulted in a heated argument.

A nearby police officer stationed outside the home of Tarō Asō prevented further escalation and the protesters left without seeking compensation for damages.

The following day, Sukarno held a press conference in front of her home to voice her dissatisfaction with the police response.

As of 2012, Dewi Sukarno enjoys caring for her 16 dogs and her cosmetics business.

She has her own charity business that is often scrutinized by the National Tax Agency.

In July 2012, in response to a bullying incident at Otsu City Ojiyama Junior High School, which resulted in the suicide of a student, Sukarno published names and photos of a woman who was the supposed bully and people who appeared to be related to her in a blog post.

It was soon revealed that the perpetrator had been misidentified, however, and Sukarno removed the entry from her blog.